The United States Department of War on Saturday signed a deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI to deploy artificial intelligence models in the Pentagon’s classified network after kicking off rival Anthropic PBC over safeguard policies. Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said the DoW “displayed a deep respect for safety” and agreed with OpenAI’s prohibition on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems, and inculcated those into the agreement.
“We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted,” he said in a post on microblogging site X.
Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.
In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.
AI safety and wide distribution of…
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 28, 2026
A day ago, the Pentagon declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk after President Donald Trump directed US government agencies to stop using its products. The government wanted to use Anthropic’s Claude chatbot for any purpose within legal limits — but without any usage restrictions from Anthropic.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the department to bar its contractors and their partners from any commercial activity with Anthropic. In a post on X, Hegseth set a six-month period for Anthropic to hand over AI services to another provider. “America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech,” Hegseth wrote. “This decision is final.”
Anthropic had insisted that Claude not be used for mass surveillance against Americans or in fully autonomous weapons operations. The company plans to challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.
This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.
Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted…
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) February 27, 2026
Acceptable Terms
Altman said his company will build technical safeguards to ensure AI models adhere to agreed norms. OpenAI will deploy engineers to work closely with the DoW to help with the models and ensure their safety on cloud networks only.
The CEO has further asked the Pentagon to offer similar terms to all AI companies that could be acceptable. “We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements,” he said.
ALSO READ: US Bars Anthropic Products From Agencies, Contractors
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